Big Query to Google Ads transfer of data.
Hi, Team,
I am trying to move data from Big Query to Google Ads.
I have tried the vice-versa via various mentods like “Transfer Service”, Scripts etc.
Currently need to transfer from BigQuery to Google Ads & unable to locate the right documentation. Can anyone share required details as I am new to this. Any help would be higly appreciated.
Regards,
Mohammed Azeem.
The short answer is:
The primary way to move large amounts of first-party customer data like offline conversions and customer lists from BigQuery to Google Ads is by using the Google Ads Data Manager UI or programmatically via the Google Ads API’s ConversionUploadService for conversions and CustomerMatchService for audience lists.
The BigQuery Data Transfer Service is designed only to move data into BigQuery, not out of it.
The recommended “codeless” solution is to use the Google Ads Data Manager and directly link your BigQuery tables for automated syncing of customer data and conversion actions.
The long answer is:
Your confusion is completely understandable because the BigQuery Data Transfer Service, which you mentioned, handles the easy part of moving data from Google Ads and other marketing platforms to BigQuery.
Unfortunately, the reverse direction – moving clean, first-party data from BigQuery to Google Ads – does not have a single, unified service like the Transfer Service.
You have two main routes, which depend on your technical comfort and the complexity of your data.
The easiest, low-code solution is through the Google Ads User Interface via the Data Manager.
In your Google Ads account, navigate to Tools and Settings, then select Data Manager.
From here, you can directly connect BigQuery as a product for two main use cases: creating a Customer List for remarketing (Customer Match) and setting up an Import for Offline Conversions.
For both, you select BigQuery, grant the necessary permissions to your project, and then select the specific BigQuery table and fields you want to map to the required Google Ads fields like gclidemail address (hashed), or phone number (hashed).
This establishes a direct, automated link for both audience syncing and conversion reporting, especially for Standard Events like offline purchases.
The programmatic solution, which offers maximum control and custom logic, is to use the Google Ads API.
You would first use the BigQuery API (or a server-side script) to query and extract the relevant data from your BigQuery tables.
This data must then be correctly formatted and, for privacy, fields like email, phone number, and mailing address must be normalized and hashed using SHA256 before being sent to Google Ads.
You then use the Google Ads API to send this formatted data to two specific services: the ConversionUploadService for offline conversions (which should include a Google Click ID, or gclid, for proper attribution), or the CustomerMatchService for uploading customer data to create or update an audience segment.
This is where your idea of using Google Tag Manager (GTM) Server Container with a server like Stape or Google Cloud Platform (GCP) comes into play, creating an excellent, cost-effective pipeline for the API method.
Instead of building and maintaining a custom script or application on a dedicated server just to handle this data transfer, you can use the GTM Server Container as a lightweight and scalable processing layer.
You can write a small Cloud Function or have a simple server-side endpoint on GCP (or use the ready-made functionality of a service like Stape) that is triggered on a schedule or by a BigQuery change.
This function queries your BigQuery data, performs the necessary hashing and formatting, and then sends the clean data directly to the Google Ads API via a custom GTM Server Tag.
This approach is superior because it centralizes your tagging and API calls, uses scalable and cheap cloud functions, and avoids the complexity of a full-scale ETL tool, making it a powerful and affordable “last mile” solution for data activation.
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